Muskegon Family Care family planning clinic to close

MUSKEGON COUNTY — Tight finances will again limit lower-income women’s access to family planning services in Muskegon.

Cutbacks in the Michigan Department of Community Health will force the Muskegon Family Care family planning clinic at 1836 E. Oak to close as of today.

The Muskegon Family Care program closure follows the demise of the Muskegon Center of Planned Parenthood at the end of 2007. When Planned Parenthood left Muskegon for financial reasons, it directed clients to services at Muskegon Family Care or Hackley Community Care Center — both federally chartered health care clinics for the poor.

Women’s health advocates say that younger, poorer women who need family planning services will have problems accessing them without special programs such as Planned Parenthood and the Oak Street family planning clinic.

The Oak Street family planning clinic has been funded by federal and state family planning dollars but Muskegon Family Care has been shouldering a “substantial” loss in providing the services, according to its director, Tom Lufkin.

The state provided Muskegon Family Care $185,072 last year and cut it to $148,712 this fiscal year, with further budget reductions expected, Community Health spokesman James McCurtis said.

The closing was a local decision, but a half dozen of the 39 providers statewide have also ended the family planning clinics for financial reasons. The state will seek other health care providers to provide the service at the reduced amount, McCurtis said.

The Muskegon Family Care clinic has been serving about 100 low-income women a month. The clinic has a staff of five.

Muskegon Family Care is directing the family planning clinic patients to its two remaining centers of operation: at 2201 S. Getty and on the fourth floor of the Mercy Health Partners Oak Campus, the former Muskegon General Hospital.

“It will be an issue for some in terms of transportation,” Lufkin said. “But the state has diminished its funding substantially.”

The Oak Street Family Planning Clinic has a long history in Muskegon. It began in 1996 with a Muskegon County Health Department contract with the Michigan Department of Community Health to provide contraceptive and other family planning services to low-income residents, county health Director Ken Kraus said.

When the county couldn’t afford to keep the services going, the program transferred to Muskegon General Hospital and eventually with Mercy Hospital when the two merged. Muskegon Family Care eventually took over the program with a direct contract with the state, Kraus said.

“We are a community struggling with high teen pregnancy, and this is a problem,” Kraus said of losing another family planning clinic. “It is another example of the public health infrastructure being impacted by the state budget.”

According to the Muskegon Community Health Project, Muskegon County has a teen pregnancy rate of 74.1 births per 1,000 girls 15-17 years old — higher than the state average of 54.1 births per 1,000 teen girls.

Hackley Community Care Center is working with Muskegon and Muskegon Heights public schools to launch teen health centers in the high schools. Although not dispensing contraceptives, the centers would allow for family planning issues to be discussed and health referrals to be made, according to Hackley Director Linda Juarez.

“Planned Parenthood served especially young women’s health needs, and if we don’t have a place for young women to go, I don’t know if they will seek out help,” Juarez said. “I don’t know how this is all going to play out.”